Pulled out of Coffeyville on Tuesday, October 2.  Made a wrong turn at a weird circle thing, and boy was that a lucky mistake.  About 3 miles down the road into Oklahoma, we saw a service station by a couple of casinos, and found we'd lost a tire somewhere.  At least this time we didn't lose the entire wheel like we did on the way up to Coffeyville.  No, only the tire had blown and was so shredded at so be nearly unrecognizable. 

I really should have taken a photo, but I was so tired and so on-edge from the knowing we were lost, that I took a $20 and while we waited for the tire guy to come and replace the tire, I played the slots in the little casino behind the convenience store.  It was called Lil’ Bit of Paradise Casino – Chilocco, and appears to be not connected to the large casino, First Council Casino, next door. 

By the time the tire was fixed, it was too late to get back on the road, so we opted for dinner in the large casino and enjoyed the best calzones we've had in ages at the FlatWater Sports Bar & Grill.  Really, really good food.  We dry camped there in the huge empty parking lot, and hit the road early on Wednesday morning. Bob opted to drive as far as the Winstar RV Park in Thackerville, Oklahoma, and we pulled in there fairly early in the afternoon. 

What a GREAT place to stay!  The spaces are all concrete, and since they aren't full up right now, they put us onto a 2 unit spot to use like a pull through.  Space rent for one overnight was only $20, and that included use of the hot tub and swimming pool, free coffee and hot chocolate in the office, all utilities and a decent wifi connection, as well.  Plus there's a shuttle bus that goes to and from the casino, too.

We rested, then went for a nice soak in the hot tub.  Wow, did that ever feel nice on our sore bodies!  I should have gone into the pool before I dipped in the hot tub, though, because I just couldn't tolerate the coolness of the water.  My son enjoyed it, though.

After that, we changed and got the shuttle over to the casino, intending to eat at the buffet.  The prices were just too high, though, so we opted for burgers and fries at the burger joint ... NYC Burgers & Dogs located right next door to the over priced buffet.  The burgers were awesomely delicious, and amazingly enough, not overpriced for what you got.  We'd eat there again in a heartbeat!

The Winstar has billboards saying that it is the second largest casino in the world, and it's probably true since they just keep building and building and building.  It's a very, very long walk from one end to the other ... so long, in fact, that people will actually go outside and wait for one of the shuttles to get to another section rather than walk that far.

Surprisingly enough, at least to me, was that there are quite a few folks living in the RV park on a month to month basis.  For what you get, it's really a deal ~ $420 a month and all the amenities, plus laundry that's only $1 to wash and $1 to dry.  Everything is new and clean and just a delight.  Thackerville is quite small, but it seems that the RV park is close enough to other things besides the Casino to make it attractive as a month or more stay.  I know I'd love to go back and see more of the area.  I'd have to stay out of the casino, though, unless I won enough to keep playing, 'cause I'm pretty sure I could go broke really fast playing some of my favorite games there. 

All good things must end, and we got back on the road to TX fairly early on Thursday, driving down IH35.  Bob opted to miss a lot of the traffic by taking the Toll Road 130, which would have been great except for one thing:  another tire blew almost as soon as we were on the road.  I'd just rolled down my window, as a matter of fact, which is the ONLY reason we knew we had a flat tire.

The Argosy pulls so well, that both times we lost a tire (once the entire wheel, including rim, and the second the blowout on Tuesday) we were no aware that anything had happened.  No change in how it felt driving either time.  So to hear the tire go was a very fortuitous event.  We pulled off at the first exit, onto a farm road, and we essentially crawled slowly in a left then right zig zag inching our way towards Round Rock. 

We finally found University Avenue, and went to the first gas station we came to, so we could get some cold water and use a phone book.  That's the gas station we pulled in to below. (google maps are awesome!)

Ended up calling our daughter, who used Google to find out that we were only 2 blocks from a Lamb's Tire center.  Talk about happy campers!  We were quite relieved to know how close we were, and given that this was tire #3 to go, we opted to replace both tires on that side rather than take any chances that the last of the 4 would blow.

Travel from there to the Lucky Too was a short journey, and upon arrival we found that the spot we'd vacated in August had come available just that morning, so we pulled right back in where we'd been before.

Now it's just a matter of getting Bob to his medical appointments here in TX, and finding out when our next big adventure can begin.

Looking back, I'm not sorry we went to Amazon again, but I'm also not really too sorry that the adventure ended abruptly.  Today marks the end of the second week since I last packed a box there, and I'm still taking pain pills for sore muscles.  The excessive arm movement and lifting of cases seems to have really messed up the muscles in my chest wall and across my back.  I noticed yesterday while doing laundry how holding anything at arm's length still is quite painful.

I wish I could say that we ended up money ahead this time, but we spent it as fast as we earned it fixing up the van with a new front end and two new tires, and then the trip home and 3 new tires rather exhausted what was left.  But we've got new clothes, shoes, and stuff for the trailer, so we can be happy about that.  There's always something to be grateful for and happy about.

Well, it actually started about 3 weeks ago, but it came to a proverbial "head" on Tuesday the 25th.  Both Bob and I have experienced a great deal of physical pain from walking on the concrete, and the limited number of opportunities to sit during the ten hour work day.  Bob's back, however, had been getting worse, despite his heavy use of muscle rub and icy hot and patches.  Tuesday morning he woke up not feeling too well, but we went to work anyway.  He tried to last for the entire day, but there were just too many large and heavy orders, and he shocked the heck outta me by announcing at 1:30 in the afternoon that he couldn't make it to five and that we needed to go home.  So home we went ... dosed ourselves with pain killers and muscle rubs, and hoped for the best.

Wednesday we managed to get up and go to Wal-Mart, where we got the haircuts in the salon that's in the front, but even that was too much and we ended up in the ER that night.

This is our second trip to the ER in the 7 weeks.  Bob got an ear infection early on, and we ended up in the ER for that, but didn't miss any work.  For a small town, Coffeyville's ER is amazing.  Coming from Crescent City, where an ER visit is a minimum of 6 to 12 hrs, and where we've stayed for up to 25 hours without his being admitted, to get in and out of this ER in under 5 hrs was just a blessing.  And both times the doctor administered meds there, in case we couldn't get the prescriptions until the next day.  Gotta LOVE that part.

So the Dr. thinks at first that it's a kidney stone ... blood work, urine samples, and a cat scan later, they can't find one so Dr. decides it must be a muscle spasm, and gives him a couple of shots, two prescriptions, and instructs him to followup on Friday at his office.  That's something else we liked about this hospital:  the ER is staffed by local doctors, not rent-a-medics. 

BUT ... he can't drive given these meds, and he can't be left alone, so ... we both have to miss work.  So we do the mandatory call in, and take our point-lumps.  You accumulate points for missing work, and when you reach a certain number of points, they give you the boot.

Friday he's worse, and the doctor won't release him for work (Gee, ya think?) of course, and changes his meds again and schedules a follow up for Monday.  Wal Mart pharmacy didn't carry one of the prescriptions, so we had to drive back into town to another pharmacy for one, and then back to Walmart for the other, and of course one of the meds isn't covered by his insurance so we're out of pocket $64.

Monday he saw two doctors, as the one from the ER brought in a second doctor as a consult, and they both said he should go back to TX to see his regular doctors, given his medical history.  The alternative would be for them to admit him to the hospital and start running tests.  Given that  his Scott and White insurance probably wouldn't cover that, being out of plan and all, it became a no brainer to get ourselves back to TX as quickly as we could.

That wasn't as easy as you might have expected ... more coming in the next blog post.